Our own Ray Jackendoff is the speaker!

Evidence from both linguistic theory and psycholinguistics argues the lexicon contains many composite items, stored as such with their internal structure. Moreover, one of the tenets of the Parallel Architecture (Jackendoff 2002) is that there is no divide between lexicon and grammar: “rules of grammar” are stored in the lexicon in the form of schemas that contain variables. Hence the traditional overarching focus on how rules construct novel utterances must give way to a shared focus, in which the relationships among lexical items are equally if not more important.
Schemas come in two types. A nonproductive schema captures regularities among its listed instances, but it resists extension to new instances. A productive schema also captures regularities among listed instances, but in addition can be used freely to create new utterances online; it is this function that corresponds most closely to traditional rules.
An important question arises, however: Does the theory (or the brain) need nonproductive schemas? Or can the subregularities encoded in nonproductive schemas be captured by simpler associative principles, as advocated both by the connectionists and by Pinker? I will suggest reasons why nonproductive schemas might be helpful in acquisition, in organizing storage, and in lexical access.

Click here for a list of CBS (Cognitive and Brain Science) talks for Fall 2016

"The mystery of iconic gesture – a great challenge for the cognitive sciences," Jan de Ruiter will give a guest lecture in Prof. Dennett’s Foundations of Cognitive Science seminar, on September 15th at 7:30pm in Miner 112. All are welcome. *Important Note: There's a chance we will change the room to another location (Barnum 104).